Coventry City's
exciting eleven-game run without defeat in league games came to an
end on Sunday at Bramall Lane in disappointing circumstances. The
result was a travesty and the Blades could not believe their luck in
finishing the game with eleven men, avoiding a goal when the ball
clearly crossed the line and scoring the only goal with a deflection
off Billy Sharp's shoulder. The Sky Blues had by far the better of
the game and should have won comfortably.
As I have previously
written, the run of 11 games, six wins and five draws, equals the run
in the autumn of 2001 when Roland Nilsson took over from Gordon
Strachan, and that was the best run since Jimmy Hill's 'Invincibles'
in the 1966-67 Second Division promotion campaign. During that
25-game run City ground out a lot of results without playing well and
after Christmas there were few attractive games. They won only four
away games, drawing eight but at home they were unbeaten with eleven
wins and two draws. Older fans will remember the backs to the wall
draws at Rotherham, Crystal Palace and Bristol City and the scraped
home wins over Norwich, Preston and Carlisle. My point is, I don't
expect to see City play champagne soccer every week between now and
the end of the season in order to win promotion.
Before today's game
with Oldham, City, coincidentally, have 25 games remaining in League
One and a repeat of the famous 1967 run would give them 15 wins and
10 draws for a total of 94 points and ample for automatic promotion.
The fans just have to pray that they don't have one of their
post-Christmas slumps.
After Billy Sharp
scored the winning goal on Sunday Benjamin Lipman enquired if Sharp
was close to matching Richard Cresswell's scoring record against the
Sky Blues. Sharp's record is good – five in seven games – but
Cresswell has scored nine against us since 2001. Neither player is
likely to overhaul the record holder, a certain Alan Shearer who
netted 18 league and cup goals against us for three different clubs
between 1991 and 2005. Other deadly strikers against City include
Tony Cottee (14), Ian Rush (14) and Bob Latchford (13).
There was some cheer in
the City camp last weekend – on Friday night the youth team beat
Premier League Stoke City to advance into the fourth round of the FA
Youth Cup for the second season running. It was the first victory
over a Premier League side since 2003 when City beat Everton in round
three before going out of the competition to Nottm Forest. The scorer
of the only goal of the night at Leamington FC's Harbury Road ground
was Bassala Sambou who has now netted all seven of City's goals in
the competition.
He has already
overtaken James Maddison's haul of six goals in last season's
competition and a host of other City youngsters who have also netted
six in one season including:
Bob Allen (1967-68),
Trevor Smith (twice in 1969-70 and 1970-71), Steve Livingstone
(1986-87), Andrew Ducros (1994-95) and Gary McSheffrey (twice in
1998-99 & 1999-00).
Only Tom English has
scored more than Sambou. In 1978-79 the Sky Blues started in the
qualifying rounds and English scored nine goals in ten cup games to
set the record. Sambou has scored seven in three!
Interestingly, of the
six-in-a-season scorers only McSheffrey and Livingstone really
achieved their potential and some would argue only Gary did.
Mick Samuel sent me an
email this week to tell me about the passing of Eve Shirley. Eve and
her late husband Jim ran the Sky Blue
hostel for young players in Catherine Street during the time that
Noel Cantwell was manager in the late 1960s. Many of City's
outstanding youth players of that era would have been looked after by
Eve and Jim. Eve passed away in Newquay, Cornwall, aged 91.
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